Marlon Wayans has been famous for a long time but will admit that he doesn’t have the pressure of his friend Will Smith. While sitting in an interview with Big Boy in promotion of his new HBO special The Headliners, Marlon revealed he called Will Smith after the infamous slap.
Wayans stated he thinks 30 years of pressure got to Smith at the moment and snapped. Wayans advocated to “check on your strong friends,” which is what he did via phone call.
“I was like, ‘Hey brother you may want to go get you about three hours of therapy,’” Wayans said. “’You need to sit down with a therapist and have a long talk. Something is going on with you.’ And that wasn’t him. See, I don’t have that kind of pressure. He’s been Black excellence for 30 years, I’ve been Black alrightness, ain’t too much pressure. People expect me to do dumb stuff, but him? Nah, not Will.”
Wayans also believed that Smith’s slap to Rock was counterproductive beyond his own career and will allow for more jokes to be made about Jada Pinkett Smith. “Everybody got a Will Smith-Chris Rock, you know, Jada joke,” Wayans said.
Wayans says he also spoke with Chris Rock to make sure that he was doing well. You can hear Marlon Wayans dive into the subject and more below.